


Postcards From My Former Self

by NorthOfSomewhere



Category: Death Note (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Angst, M/M, Reincarnation, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-01
Updated: 2019-02-01
Packaged: 2019-10-20 09:23:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,304
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17619767
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NorthOfSomewhere/pseuds/NorthOfSomewhere
Summary: Re-incarnation AU. Light remembers.





	Postcards From My Former Self

I.

Light traces figures into the sand. He is alone. His family isn't too far off of course, he can hear the playful tone of their voices. He can hear them talking, laughing, living. It all sounds muffled, as if the rest of the world is behind glass. He doesn't care. He's absorbed in his current task. He doesn't need to pay attention, nothing interesting ever happens. He drags the stick along slowly, carefully. He was never good at art. He doesn't want to have to start over again. He want, needs, to get the wings just right.

Ryuk.

He mouths the name to himself.

Ryuk.

He didn't even say it out loud and the name tastes bitter on his tongue, like a bar of 95 percent dark chocolate, but, he was never one for sweet things. He misses the shinigami in a way. If only because he had been able to be himself around Ryuk. It was something he never had before the Death Note, someone who saw him as he was. And then there was L, who saw everything. He writes L's name in the sand and then crosses it out immediately. _'L,'_ he thinks _'where are you?'_

A glance upwards shows his parents sitting with another couple, happily chatting away. He's never seen his parents so happy before. They hardly ever get out of the house together as a family. A few feet away from them is his little sister, Sayu. She's building sandcastles with a boy around his age, maybe a couple years older. Light knows who he is immediately. He looks much the same as he had in the last life. He has lost the exhaustion and stress lines and the general aura of weariness he had worn for those last few years. It's to be expected though, considering they are both children in this time. Matsuda.

He's at the beach with his family. His parents had set up this play date with one of the other families from the neighborhood. Light knows that they are worried about him. They are worried that he doesn't speak, worried that he never will. They are worried that he doesn't have any friends. He would have known their worries even if he hadn't overheard them talking at night. They wear their concern clearly on their faces when they look at him. His father always seems disappointed. They both do, but his mother hides it better. He knows they love him. They just wish he was an easy child, like sweet and sunny Sayu. They think this outing will help. He knows it won't. The other ones never did. There is nothing wrong with him, at least nothing they or anyone else can help with.

Matsuda is his opposite and everything he knows his parents want him to be. Maybe in a past life (This saying amuses him because there is no maybe about it) he would be good enough for them. They want him to be outgoing like Matsuda, friendly, and cheerful. Matsuda has the disposition of a puppy. Light will never be like that.

He allows himself a small smile as he looks down at the finished product, satisfied with his depiction of Ryuk. He starts a new drawing in the sand, moving the stick more confidently this time because this part is easier. Just as he finishes the tower of apples, a shadow falls across his pictures. He looks up only because he knows it's the polite thing to do. All he feels is annoyance at the interruption. He waits for Matsuda to say whatever he's going to say. It doesn't take long.

"Do you wanna build sand castles with us?" Matsuda asks, his voice is bright and happy. He's smiling toothily at Light. He briefly wonders what that's like; the feeling of joy.

Light must be taking too long to answer because Matsuda stops smiling and starts looking worried. He finally nods. Matsuda smiles softly at him, turns to walk away, and for a moment Light is struck with the image of a very different Matsuda, older and more weary, filled with helpless anger.

_'You shot me.'_ The thought rushes through his mind like, well, a gunshot and his shoulder feels as if it's on fire. His hands start to shake. He feels a laugh bubbling up, hysterical, shrill. He forces it down. If he started he doesn't think he would ever stop.

Lights stands, brushing the sand off his shorts, and starts to follow the other boy, slowly. He makes sure to step in the shallow prints Matsuda leaves in the sand.

Sayu squeals in delight when she looks up and sees Light walking toward her. She waves her tiny chubby fingers at him, joyful as ever. He spares her a quick smile. It feels mechanical. He sits across from them, glad that he didn't have to sit next to Matsuda. He occasionally hands Sayu shells for their castle, she hands some of them to Matsuda, some she keeps for herself, and some of them get smashed into the castle walls. Light watches her, and Matsuda and he feels tired. Their happiness is exhausting. In this moment, he feels incredibly ancient.

He hands Sayu another shell.

 

II.

The space next to him feels like a void, stretching endlessly empty and cold.

Light dreams of dark, shadowed eyes watching over him, a guardian devil, and messy black hair (soft, silky between his fingers) and when he startles awake, he finds himself reaching for something, someone.

There is never anything there.

He wants, wants, wants.

He circles his fingers around his wrist and momentarily stops feeling empty.

He wishes he could make it last.

 

III.

Light was (is) in love with L. He knows that now.

It's funny, he thinks, that he can remember so much about the past, but he doesn't recall how his voice sounds. At some point he has developed an odd fear that his voice is no longer his own.

He might open his mouth to discover that he has the raspy, rusty tones of a shinigami. He might tilt his head back to laugh and find that all that comes out is a grating cackle. He'd rather not find out so he says nothing. The memory of his own voice drifts somewhere he can't reach.

He can remember L's voice though. L would probably find it funny that Light can't get him out of his brain. In fact, he would probably say that it increases his chances of being Kira. Light can almost picture him smiling in that infuriating (and oddly charming, Light can admit now that he's removed from it all) way of his. He hears L's voice in his thoughts and in his dreams. He sometimes awakes with percentages at the tip of his tongue as if L had placed them there himself. His long, pale fingers stacking the numbers in precarious piles like so many of his favorite treats. Light swallows them down so they won't escape. He wants to keep everything L has ever said to him, real and imagined, in a box, no, a vault, for safekeeping.

In his dreams, L's voice says things that he never has and never will say to him. (Wrapped in a blanket, peering out at Light with his wide dark eyes, owlish, he'll say: "I love you." Light will pitch forward, placing his mouth carefully to L's, he is always cold. Light is afraid he'll fade like smoke. _'I love you, i love you so much. I need you, L.'_ ) Not in this life and not in the last. The thought of it stings.

Light wants, wants, wants.

He wonders if there will be a next life and if he'll remember in that one too. He hopes for his own sanity that he doesn't.

**Author's Note:**

> Light ages up in each little segment. Still not sure if I like this. Edited a bit, so if you read it on ff.net it's still the old version.


End file.
